Departmental Waste Review

James Paice: That is a bit rich, given that the Labour Government spent 13 years running down our agricultural industry so that we now have to import to cover half
	our needs—that is the result of their policies. Of course we are developing our own proposals. The Foresight report was produced under this Government and we stand by it. It is a very comprehensive report and we will, of course, be responding to it with a series of proposals to put British agriculture back where it belongs—back on its feet.

Richard Benyon: Before I answer the question, I want say that all Members are in awe of the hon. Lady’s courage in standing up for her constituents and the industry she loves so soon after the tragic loss of her husband
	Fishermen are facing significant challenges, particularly in the English under-10 metre fleet. Forthcoming domestic and European reforms offer the opportunity fundamentally to change things and put the industry on a sustainable footing in the longer term. In the meantime, along with financial support available through the European Fisheries Fund, the Marine Management Organisation is working with industry effectively to manage the current system, to secure additional quota through swaps and to keep fisheries open as long as possible.

Caroline Spelman: Every Member of the House can find it in their heart to do that—of course they can. We have all read newspaper reports about the terrible suffering of Anne the elephant, and I am very glad that she is being spared and has a new, far more enjoyable home. However, the report in The  Independent clearly states that the Austrian Government have been taken to court by a German circus company because of a breach of the EU services directive. It would be irresponsible of any Government—I hope he is not saying that he would do this if he were part of a Government—to recommend something that is under legal dispute.

Richard Benyon: I look forward to building again the good relationship that I had with devolved Ministers from all kinds of different parties in the different parts of the United Kingdom to make sure that, particularly
	on fisheries and marine issues, we work as one and agree, as we did, on nearly everything so that at the end of the day we work towards sound policies on food security, conservation and protecting valuable ecosystems. I will continue to do so.

George Young: My hon. Friend is right that Network Rail’s corporate governance structure is supremely difficult to follow. We have a commitment to make it properly accountable to its customers, and at the moment we are examining the structures and incentives of the industry to see how best to enable that. I hope that that helps her, but in the meantime, I can only suggest that she redoubles her correspondence with Network Rail to see whether there is an appropriate solution to the position at Downham Market.

George Young: My understanding is that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) is coming to give evidence to the Transport Committee and that arrangements
	are being made for informal meetings between the Committee and coastguards outside this House. So I am not sure that it is exactly correct to say that members of the Select Committee have been denied access to coastguards. My understanding is that informal meetings are being arranged.

Michael Gove: With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to a make a statement on the next stage of this coalition Government’s radical reform programme to make opportunity more equal. I should like to outline our response to Professor Alison Wolf’s groundbreaking report on vocational education. In her work, Professor Wolf stresses the importance of fundamental reform across the board to improve state education, and I would first like to update the House on our progress towards that goal.
	It is a year to the day since the new Department for Education was created to raise standards for all children and narrow the gap between rich and poor. In that year: we have introduced a pupil premium—£2.5 billion of additional spending on the poorest pupils; we have extended the free provision of nursery education for all three and four-year-olds and introduced free nursery education for all disadvantaged two-year-olds; we have launched the most comprehensive review ever of care for children with special needs; we have overhauled child protection rules to ensure that social workers are better able to help the most vulnerable children; we have allowed all schools to use the high-quality exams which the last Government restricted to the private sector; we are ensuring that spelling, punctuation and grammar are properly recognised in exams; we have recruited Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson to restore proper narrative history teaching; and we are doubling the number of great graduates becoming teachers through Teach First and doubling the number of great heads becoming national leaders of education.
	We have also created more than 400 new academies, tripling the number we inherited and creating more academies in 12 months than the last Government did in 12 years. I can confirm to the House today that we have now received more than 1,000 applications from schools wishing to become academies and more than 300 applications to set up free schools, many from great teachers such as the inspirational head teacher, Patricia Sowter. and the former Downing street aide, Peter Hyman.
	Those achievements have been made possible by the united strength of two parties with a shared commitment to social mobility working together, and I wish to take this opportunity to underline my thanks, for the part they have played in pushing this programme forward—to the Deputy Prime Minister, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), to the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), who has responsibility for children and families, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws). It is my personal hope that we will all be able once more to make use of his talents in the country’s service before too long.
	We will be building on the momentum generated by our reform programme by today accepting all the recommendations in Professor Wolf’s report on vocational education. She found that although there are many great vocational education courses and institutions providing excellent vocational education that are heavily oversubscribed, hundreds of thousands of young people
	are taking qualifications that have little or no value. That is because: the system is overly complex; after years of micro-management and mounting bureaucratic costs, it is also hugely expensive; and there are counter-productive and perverse incentives that steer students into inferior courses. In short, the damaging system of vocational education that we inherited is failing young people and must be changed now before the prospects of generations of young people are further blighted.
	Securing our country’s future relies upon us developing our own world-class education system, from which young people graduate with not only impeccable qualifications and deep subject knowledge, but the real practical and technical skills they need to succeed. This Government support high-quality vocational education not just for its utility; vocational education is valuable in its own right. It is part of the broad and balanced curriculum that every pupil should be able to enjoy. It allows young people to develop their own special craft skills, to experience the satisfaction of technical accomplishment, and to expand what they know, understand and can do. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning has repeatedly and eloquently argued, we need to elevate the practical and treat vocational education not, as it has been seen in the past, as an inferior route for the less able, but as an aspirational path for those with specific aptitudes. That is why we are taking immediate steps to rebuild the currency of vocational qualifications.
	As recommended by Professor Wolf, we have reinstated several qualifications which lead to professional success, for example, certificates in electrical engineering and plumbing, which we know are highly valued by schools and colleges, and are admired by employers. Because we know that the current set of qualifications does not meet all needs, we will work with awarding bodies and others to ensure that more high-quality courses are available for students of all levels.
	Because we know that the current league table system does not reward the progress made by students of all abilities, we will reform league tables to recognise the achievements of the lowest and highest-achieving. And because we know that not all qualifications are equal, we will further reform the league tables to guarantee that vocational qualifications are given a proper weighting. Their value will no longer be inflated in a way that encourages students to pursue inappropriate courses, or overlooked in a way that unbalances achievement.
	Because we know the current funding system creates perverse incentives, we will reform it. At the moment, schools and colleges are incentivised to offer lower-grade qualifications that are easier to pass because they get paid on those results. That must end. The dumbing-down of the past has got to stop if the next generation are to succeed. Students should choose the qualifications they need to succeed, not those that bureaucracies deem appropriate.
	However, while choice in the qualifications market is crucial, there are certain inescapable facts in the labour market that no student can ignore. Employers rightly insist that students be properly literate and numerate. They remind us that there are no more important vocational subjects than English and maths. As Professor Wolf’s report lays bare, huge numbers of students leave education without proper qualifications in those areas, making it increasingly hard for them to secure jobs.
	This Government will put an end to that by ensuring that all 16 to 18-year-olds who were unable to secure at least a C in English and maths at GCSE will continue to study those subjects through to age 19.
	The best performing education systems not only offer a strong grounding in the basics such as English and maths, but ensure a good general education that cements the ability to reason, to assess evidence, to absorb knowledge and to adapt to new opportunities. In this fast-changing world, few 16-year-olds know exactly what they will be doing at the age of 21, let alone when they are 25, 35 or 45, so we need to ensure that every 18-year-old has followed a broad programme of study and has a core academic knowledge that provides a secure foundation from which to progress. That is why Professor Wolf backs our English baccalaureate as a springboard to future success in a rapidly changing world and stresses that it gives students the maximum freedom to choose between academic and vocational pathways throughout their life.
	We know that the most prestigious vocational pathways require a rounded school education as preparation. Professor Wolf’s report underlines that some of the best vocational education in the world exists in our private sector apprenticeship programmes. The best are massively oversubscribed. BT typically has 15,000 applicants for 100 places each year. Rolls-Royce has 10 applicants for every place and Network Rail is similarly oversubscribed. There is far greater competition for some of these courses than there is for places at Oxford or Cambridge.
	We want to ensure that all employers get the support they need to offer high quality apprenticeships. The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning is working to reduce the bureaucracy that employers face and to ensure that every penny spent by Government and employers on apprenticeships can be used to the very best effect, including by studying best practice with similar schemes around the world.
	Professor Wolf emphasised the need for clear routes for progression, but also for greater flexibility within them. She was right to do so. We will consider what further programmes of study are needed, alongside the general educational component, to give 16 to 18-year-olds the broad education they need.
	For more than a century, there have been numerous, failed attempts to reform vocational education. It is now more important than ever that we finally bring an end to the two-tier education system that has scarred our country for too long. Professor Wolf’s report, together with wider reforms like the fantastic university technical colleges being pioneered by Lord Baker, sets out a clear map of what we need to do. I am delighted that Professor Wolf has agreed to continue to provide regular and ongoing advice to Government as we implement her recommendations. I cannot think of anyone better qualified to help us offer young people the genuine and high-quality technical education they have been too long denied. I commend this statement to the House.

Andy Burnham: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. I am pleased that he has managed to join us today. We touched on many similar themes yesterday in an enjoyable and lively discussion. I hope that, in preparing his statement today, he has had time to catch up on it.
	We devote a great deal of time to higher education, but much less to improving opportunities for young people who do not plan to go to university. I have long advocated redressing that balance and it is now an urgent imperative in view of the Government’s changes to higher education.
	As I said when the report was published, I find much to welcome in Professor Wolf’s vision for higher-quality vocational education. I agree with some aspects of what the Secretary of State has said today, particularly the commitment to ensuring that every young person reaches a decent level of proficiency in English and maths before they leave school and that all programmes of study lead to progression. I also welcome efforts to simplify the system and qualifications in vocational education to make it easier for young people to navigate their way through.
	Professor Wolf recommends the adoption of multiple measures of school performance, echoing the moves we made in government towards a balanced school report card approach. The Secretary of State has accepted that today, in speaking of his promise to reform league tables to create new performance management measures in addition to the English baccalaureate. I will give careful consideration to the measures he brings forward, but I gently warn him that his plans to measure students at the top and the bottom already sound complex. Is he not in danger of recreating in another form a complex target regime of the type of which he complained so frequently when he was in opposition? Will not teachers’ hearts sink when they hear that there are to be more targets? Will they not question whether he is delivering on the autonomy to get on and teach that he promised them? Will he give us an assurance that he will consult teachers before dropping any new performance management measure on them, as he did with the English baccalaureate?
	Even with a range of measures in force, Professor Wolf’s report rightly warns of the consequences if a single performance measure becomes dominant. Let me quote from her report, which said that there
	“remains a serious risk that schools will simply ignore their less academically successful pupils. This was a risk with the old five GCSEs measure; a risk with the English baccalaureate; and will be a risk with a measure based on selected qualifications. It needs to be pre-empted.”
	Rather than pre-empt this risk, however, did not the Secretary of State pre-empt the Wolf report by presenting his English baccalaureate as the “gold standard” for schools?
	Schools are clearly seeing it that way. Why otherwise are we seeing music, RE and arts teachers being made redundant right here, right now? Why otherwise are we seeing students under pressure from schools to switch subjects halfway through their courses or to take courses that they do not really want to do, diminishing their choice? This is becoming the dominant headline measure against which all schools and students are judged. The Secretary of State needs more convincing answers on how he plans to stop that happening.
	More broadly, has not this highly prescriptive league table measure, and its arbitrary subject selection, already damaged the deliverability of Professor Wolf’s vision by relegating vocational learning to second-division status in the public mind and in the minds of schools? The Secretary of State mentioned a two-tier system, but is that not precisely what this Government are creating—an
	elitist, two-tier system in which parents have fewer rights on admissions, making it more difficult for them to get their children into good schools? The parent voice is diminished. Creative and practical subjects are crucial to the quality vocational education that Professor Wolf advocates, but they are already a devalued currency in our schools because of the Secretary of State’s actions. Where is the creativity in his English baccalaureate? Student choice has been affected by the subject choice in the bac.
	I say again to the Secretary of State that it is time he thought again about the English baccalaureate and allowed more breadth, flexibility and choice so that it caters for the talents of all students? A school system that works for everyone cannot be designed around the requirements of the Russell group. With 103 Members calling for RE at the very least to be added to the baccalaureate, is it not now time for another of the Secretary of State’s famous U-turns?
	The deliverability of Professor Wolf’s vision is also affected by some of the Secretary of State’s actions in other areas. Professor Wolf rightly stresses the importance of a quality careers service to inform young people about their options—surely even more important in world where young people are struggling to make their way. Yet as we speak, the careers service in England is simply melting away. We welcome the vision of an all-age careers service, but we ask again today: where is the long-promised transition plan to deliver it? That is yet another example of the Secretary of State’s trademark incompetence.
	Given that careers advisers are being made redundant now, how will the Secretary of State secure the quality of service that Professor Wolf demands? Yesterday, we sought to amend his Bill to give young people a guarantee of face-to-face guidance in our schools. At a time when youth unemployment is at a record high and access to further and higher education is becoming more difficult, is not the web and telephony-based service proposed by the Government completely inadequate to the scale of the task?
	The Government mouth platitudes about social mobility, as the Secretary of State did today, but they are systematically kicking away the ladders of support that help young people to get on in life. More young people in further education colleges on vocational courses are receiving education maintenance allowance than those in school sixth-form colleges, and they need that money to buy equipment for their courses. Will not the scrapping of the EMA hit those young people disproportionately hard, and, again, make Professor Wolf’s vision hard to deliver? Colleges and students are four months away from the start of the academic year, and are still none the wiser about what they will receive under the Secretary of State’s replacement scheme. Not for the first time, he has taken a successful policy and turned it into a shambles. Is it not time to listen to no less an organisation than the OECD, and reinstate the EMA scheme? Without it, how will the Secretary of State’s commitment to raising the school leaving age become a reality?
	Professor Wolf’s report raises issues that go to the heart of the need to secure the prosperity of our country and a decent future for our young people, but by their actions the Government are taking hope away from our
	young people. Unless they change course quickly—on curriculum reform, the careers service, EMA and university fees—the Government’s legacy will be a lost generation of young people.

Michael Gove: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. He speaks very effectively for the businessmen of Surrey, who are doing so much to provide opportunities for young people, and I have to say that he is absolutely right: one of the major complaints from employers is that there are bright, intelligent, get-up-and-go young people who, sadly, have left the school system without the numeracy and literacy required to fit into almost any modern role. There is no more important task for this Government than to get those basics right, and I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) for acknowledging that in the first part of his response.

Michael Gove: As soon as word gets out that we are engaging in one-to-one negotiations across the green Benches, I expect that the Chamber will rapidly fill up, even though there is a one-line Whip. I would repeat the point I made to the hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts) to all Members: thanks to the coalition Government’s commitment to the pupil premium and to our reforms of 16-19 learning, the most disadvantaged students will receive more money. That is all thanks to our commitment to social justice.

Adam Afriyie: My interest in this issue has been on the public record for many years, and I would be very happy to play a part in any Committee established for this purpose, but naturally such a Committee should have no special privileges. I hope that it would be set up in the same way as other Committees are established, but of course I am interested in this issue and would like to do my best to try to assist Parliament and hon. Members of all persuasions in doing their jobs without unnecessary obstacles being placed in the way.
	Let me make some quick observations on some of the stresses and strains. I make these observations not necessarily to make judgments at this moment but simply to flag up some of the areas that cause concern, and which any future review might wish to consider. The first such area is cost. One of the mandates for the Committee is that it must have due regard to the need for value for money for the taxpayer. The budget for IPSA seems quite high, and was certainly significantly higher in the first year than that for the previous year’s arrangements. That is something we need to look at. Those costs might be appropriately high; it might be right that it is very expensive to operate what should be a relatively simple system, but any review must look into that.
	Secondly, we have to consider the impact that the 2009 Act is having on the time that MPs have available to perform their duties. There is no doubt, from my own experience and that of hon. Members who were here before 2010, that the level and work load associated with the expenses systems and such matters has escalated enormously. Literally days are taken away from constituents as the time of Members and their staff is taken up. There is an enormous level of stress associated with the IPSA system, and we need to take a calm look at the impact that is having on our democracy and on Members’ ability to represent their constituents.

Hilary Benn: I welcome the opportunity that the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) has given us—I, like others, think he made a very thoughtful speech—to assess what progress has been made in addressing the concerns that were last debated here in December.
	Like the hon. Gentleman, I strongly support an independent and a transparent system, because publication is the best safeguard and there can be no going back on that at all. I know that that view is shared across the House, but I do share the feeling of Members that, despite the outcome of the recent review and the progress that we have made, which I want to touch on, dealing with IPSA takes up far too much time. Time, whether of Members or our staff, has an opportunity cost, and that means we have less time to do our job.
	First, we ought to recognise that setting up IPSA was a very big task. Parliament asked for it to be done in a very short space of time, and Professor Sir Ian Kennedy and his senior colleagues, who have been unfailingly generous in the time they have given to listen to us, himself acknowledges that IPSA did not get everything right. I agree with the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who said that IPSA staff continue to be unfailingly courteous and as helpful as they possibly can be in trying to assist us, but the concerns that bring us back here today are not about them but the system itself.
	I said in December that if we asked Members, “Is IPSA helping you to do your job?”, we would find that the answer was overwhelmingly no. That was certainly reflected in the survey of parliamentary Labour party members that we undertook in submitting evidence to the review, and frankly that ought to be the test. We should not be spending any more time than is necessary on discussing the matter, particularly when it ought to be a relatively simple task.
	The issue is about making sure that we as Members have the means that we need to do the job. “Expenses” is a terrible misnomer, because it is about the means to do the job. They include staff, loyal and incredibly hard-working, who support us in our work and without whom we could not manage; an office; paying the telephone, electricity and stationery bills; the travel costs between Westminster and our constituencies; and, as the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) rightly said, the cost of having to live and to work in two places, which is in the nature of the job of being a Member of Parliament.
	On the review, we should acknowledge the progress that was made on, for example, support for MPs with family responsibilities—in relation both to travel and to accommodation; a start-up budget for new MPs, learning from the experience that our new colleagues faced a
	year ago; the definition of London; and the merging of the budgets for constituency office rental and for general office costs.
	There has been an increase in the staffing budget, although it still does not take account of the costs of the pension contribution that was passed on to MPs’ budgets a year ago, or of the additional work load that dealing with IPSA places on Members and on their staff. That situation will leave a number of MPs having to go back to the contingency fund again this year in order to continue to employ the staff they already have and need, and that really does strike me as unsatisfactory.
	There is now greater use of the payment card, but that is not an unalloyed blessing: it is still not available for all costs—as I understand it, it can be used for business rates but not for office rent, and for stationery but not for photocopiers; and reconciliation is still far too time-consuming. I can say from personal experience that accounting for train travel takes much longer than under the old system, when I have to take account of finding the tickets, going on to the IPSA website, typing in destinations repeatedly, copying everything and then posting off the form having made the details available online.
	What would really help and, I think, deal with a lot of frustration is either, if more details could be obtained from the credit card company to satisfy IPSA or, if IPSA could just agree with the House of Commons travel office that buying a ticket through the office would provide the assurance that it was us who bought it, and that it was a ticket between Westminster and our constituency or back. I use that as an example, because it should be a relatively simple thing to do, and I think it would take away a lot of the frustration that has been expressed in today’s debate and before.
	The second issue I wish to raise is about what is allowed and what will be approved, because IPSA has realised sensibly that there is a balance to be struck in relation to increasingly prescriptive rules. IPSA has come face to face with the way in which we do our job, with Members saying, “What if? This is what I do. Is it okay?”, and it has thought about the issue and realised sensibly that we can either have an increasingly long rule book, with an increasingly lengthy “frequently asked questions” page on the website, or let Members exercise their judgment, in the context of the rules as they are laid down and subject to the sunlight of publication.
	The review has moved more in the direction of the latter, but may I offer some advice to the Committee that we are going to establish on the work that it is going do? There is still a process in-between through which a Member may choose to exercise their discretion and IPSA may second-guess that when deciding whether to approve a claim. We are betwixt and between a more sensible approach.
	Thirdly, we have heard today about how Members feel the system treats them in individual cases and on case work, and I hope that the review will dig into the detail and draw on the experience of the liaison committee, so that the issues which the hon. Member for Gainsborough raised might be looked at.
	Fourthly, there is the question of value for money, something that the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is looking at. Indeed, as Members will know, the National Audit Office is carrying out a value-for-money review.
	Finally, I say to the hon. Member for Windsor that I welcome the transformation in the motion before us from that which was on the Order Paper yesterday. If we have learned one lesson, it is that legislating in haste on this matter can create difficulties.
	I support the motion because it seems to be a very sensible way forward. We should take the opportunity to review the effectiveness of the system that Parliament established, and we should assess progress as well as identifying what more needs to be done. I, for one, look forward to the result of the Committee’s work.

Mark Harper: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for clarifying that, which is very helpful.
	As my hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Leeds Central said, several things have happened since we last debated IPSA in December. At that time, IPSA had not carried out its review of the scheme, and many Members took the opportunity of that debate to put on record their specific concerns not only about the operation of the scheme but its rules. One or two Members have done that today, but in December the comments were much more focused on individual circumstances. IPSA has listened to some of those concerns. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it recognised when it set up the scheme that it did not get everything right in terms of its rules and the how it operated. To be fair, it has
	acknowledged that and put some of those things right, particularly as regards enabling us to do our jobs properly. The Government, and all Members, are concerned about ensuring that the system helps rather than hinders.
	As the right hon. Members for Oxford East (Mr Smith) and for Leeds Central said, it is important that we have an independent body that oversees the expenses system and how it operates. We must also have a transparent system. As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central said, it is the sunlight of transparency that helps to ensure that it works properly.

Adam Afriyie: My hon. Friend is talking about the Brandeis doctrine; Brandeis was a Supreme Court judge in the early 1900s. The review will also need to look at what subsequent academics have said about this. Sunlight is a great disinfectant, but it is conditional on the information that is provided being comparable and on it being, disaggregated, so that not only grouped claims or information are published. It is also conditional on the information being standardised, and any review will need to look into those issues.

Adam Afriyie: I conducted a review of regional and local newspaper publications. The evidence is pretty conclusive. The bimonthly publication we looked at had about 28 million readers. We found that 97% of local newspaper stories were negative towards MPs, and 63% of the stories made unfair or misleading comparisons between MPs and their claims. A lot of this was generated by the way in which the information was being provided to the media under the current scheme. Again, that is something we will look at.

Mark Harper: My hon. Friend makes the position very clear. A structure has been set up with the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which heard evidence from IPSA this week and questioned it about its estimate. More work is being done to deal with the hon. Gentleman’s point about cost-effectiveness and IPSA’s budget to ensure that at this difficult time for public expenditure, IPSA is as efficient and cost-effective as possible. However, it would be a mistake if we immediately leapt away from an independent, transparent system, which is what the Government, the Opposition, and every Member who has spoken in this debate supports. We cannot have an independent system and simultaneously give it instructions to on how to do its job.
	The Government look forward to the Committee’s work and give a commitment that we will look at its recommendations with great care. I will obviously not make any commitments about what we will do until we have seen the report. The Committee should do a thorough job and we look forward to its report. We also look forward to seeing what the NAO has to say. I think that that is a sensible way forward. On that basis, the Government are very relaxed about the motion in the name of the hon. Member for Windsor.

Sheryll Murray: For the second time today, I declare a special interest as the custodian of an under-10 metre commercial trawler, although she is not fishing at present. May I also thank all hon. Members for the support and kindness they have shown me following Neil’s death? It is a great comfort to me and my children that so many people have been thinking of us.
	I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee and to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) for securing this debate. Europe’s fish stocks are shared out according to Council regulation 2371/2002, which must be reviewed by 31 December 2012. This is the third review we have seen. I will not dwell on the history, although I will go back over a little of it. In 1972, the UK accession to the European Economic Community agreed equal access to a common resource. In 1976, the UK declared a 200-mile limit or median line, even though we had by then ceded control of fisheries to the EEC. In 1983, the total allowable catch—TAC—and quota system was agreed, along with the principle of relative stability, which is a mechanism of sharing out the European TAC among the member states according to their historical record of fishing. That agreement was reviewed in 1992 and the fishing industry was looking for some change, but it never came. In 2002, we were given a promise of change, but still TACs and quotas continued, with this Minister’s Department and, more recently, devolved Administrations responsible for the domestic quota management. So much regulation has been heaped on fishermen over the past 40 years that is it any wonder UK fishermen feel they have been served a very bad deal? I agree with their view.
	There are several parts to this motion. An ecosystems-based approach to fisheries management is sensible, and I am pleased the Minister is already looking at marine protected areas. However, I have grave concerns that despite in excess of £4 million being spent since 2009 on consultation, my local fishermen in Looe and Polperro feel that the information that they have supplied has been completely ignored by Finding Sanctuary and Natural England. Scientists, environmentalists and fishermen should work together, but to make this work fishermen must be confident that they are equal partners. I hope that the Minister will confirm that no marine protected area will be imposed upon the south-west
	unless and until there is buy-in from the fishermen. I attended one of the Finding Sanctuary consultations with my husband, and we were asked to give details of where the fishermen worked so that the marine protected areas would not prevent them from earning. I am shocked to be told by those very same fishermen today that those very areas are now identified for closure or restriction.
	Socio-economics must be a major factor when marine environmental measures are introduced. The discarding of fish is a wicked waste of nutrition. I congratulate Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on bringing the issue to the attention of the public and to that of the European Commission. In the early 1990s, south-west fishermen covered Royal parade in Plymouth with plaice to illustrate the waste caused by the quota, but 20 years on we are still talking about the problem. There are anomalies to a discard ban. Lobster and crab survive capture. Crab pots are not size-sensitive, yet if all the babies were landed, it would lead to the extinction of the species.
	I think that 2015 is a realistic target to ensure we fish sustainably. British fishermen do not intentionally set out to catch baby fish; they continually adapt their nets with square mesh panels and separator grids to avoid catching small fish or the wrong species. I understand that only two days ago discussions at a meeting north of the border centred around introducing a trial of a net to reduce discards in the nephrops fishery. I have been told that it would take only half a day to adapt an existing nephrops net to this design. Fishermen cannot avoid capturing unwanted fish and, in my constituency, they sometimes find their nets full of undersized red gurnards. Those are non-pressure stock and, according to the Marine Conservation Society, the data have shown an indication of their stability in recent years. We need to find a use for these fish, however.
	Scientists and environmentalists will often talk about fish without considering the fishermen. Many people forget that a fishing skipper needs expertise in a number of fields: engineering, fish biology, navigation and weather forecasting, as well as the usual requirements for running a small business. Imagine how soul destroying it is to tow gear for hours, haul in a net and find the cod-end full of the wrong species, then throw them back and return to port with a massive fuel bill and no money to pay for it! It angers me when I hear scientists dismiss out of hand the fishermen’s assessment of the stocks. The fishermen—and some fisherwomen; we have at least one in Cornwall—are experts and should be treated as equals.
	Let me move on to deal with fishing within territorial waters. According to paragraph 2 of article 17 of the basic regulation, fishing activity is restricted in waters up to 12 miles from the baseline under the sovereignty or jurisdiction of member states to local fishermen or those from other member states with historic rights—until the end of 2012 when the limits that have been in place for 30 years could be abolished.
	I believe that abolition of this protection would be a move too far. We have a referendum lock in place for new EU treaties, so why not have a referendum if the protection of our sovereign territorial waters is threatened? I believe the 12-mile limit should be reserved for small inshore UK vessels that are unable to migrate to fishing grounds further from their home ports. These vessels support coastal communities. Small vessels—even small trawlers that operate with a single trawl, many fitted
	with rockhopper foot ropes and vented trawl doors to avoid damaging the sea bed—have a lower impact on the marine environment than more powerful vessels or vessels towing two nets at the same time.
	Under 10-metre vessels have been disadvantaged by the UK system. The underestimation of the quota came to light under the last Government, who failed to resolve the problem. We now find that the very vessels that caused the least amount of damage to the stocks are struggling to survive.

Jason McCartney: I praise my hon. Friend not just for the knowledge and expertise she brings to this debate, but for the dignified way in which she has spoken. I speak as an MP for landlocked area, and we are lucky that a number of fresh fish sellers come daily into my local villages in Colne Valley and West Yorkshire. We also have Fairtrade shops, so we know what kind of chocolate or coffee to buy. Will my hon. Friend advise my constituents on what kind of accreditation marks they should look out for if they want to make a knowledgeable purchase of sustainable fish products?

Alan Whitehead: The answer to that very pithy intervention is yes. As we move towards a new EU fisheries policy, it is absolutely vital that we remove ourselves from all the baggage of previous fisheries policies, which, since the first one was introduced in 1983, have never contained an environmental, conservation or sustainability component. A few things have been added—rather like adding Dolby sound to Philips cassettes to try to make them work better—but basically the policy was designed simply to stop countries squabbling about who should fish where. In relation to what I said about the tragedy of the commons, that merely divides the commons between different people to carry on fishing in the same way, rather than moving the debate forward.
	It is essential that we have an EU fisheries policy that is fit for purpose for the world we now live in. That is the bottom line of the debate. That includes ending discards and introducing technology that ensures that what is caught approximates most closely to what is
	intended to be caught, for example by using different nets. It includes looking at science to secure the best way forward for reducing the collateral consequences of fishing. It includes no-fish zones, which my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe) referred to.
	It is an ambitious package of measures. Nevertheless, it seems to me that it must be our starting point if we are to have fisheries that are fit for the 21st century. If we continue with fisheries that are fit for the 19th century, the fish will have disappeared by the time we are not much further into the 21st century. I wish the Minister good luck in his endeavours, which I hope will be fruitful. It is encouraging to hear the difference in tone from the EU Commission, and if we can build on that tone, on the Fish Fight campaign, which I, too, congratulate Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on bringing to the public’s attention, and on the head of steam that has built up to recognise that we have to make a step change, not a gradual change in fisheries policy, we will find that these debates have been worthwhile, and that the Minister’s success in achieving such changes on behalf of Europe will have been a triumph, indeed.

Andrew George: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), who was absolutely right to conclude by emphasising the importance, if we are to move forward effectively, of reducing the need to discard any dead fish into the sea. We need a more sophisticated package of measures, rather than the same blunt response to the blunt instrument of quotas, which caused the problem in the first place.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), before he leaves the Chamber for a no doubt well-deserved comfort break, on having brought forward the issue and on his persistence in raising it. I am proud to be a co-sponsor of the motion.
	I also pay warm tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) for having brought her great knowledge to bear and, in significantly difficult circumstances, raising the issue. She has warm support across the entire House for her contribution, and the House very much appreciates her widely acknowledged knowledge and expertise on the subject.
	I was born and brought up in west Cornwall in my constituency. My family had a fishing boat, but my father was primarily a market gardener, so I have some experience of the issue, although far less than my hon. Friend. Many members of my family are engaged in the industry around the coast of my constituency, and I do my best to keep in contact with them in order to understand the pressures of the industry, but that certainly does not compare to my hon. Friend’s expertise.
	A number of essential elements are required to move the issue forward and to make significant progress in addressing the concerns that have rightly been highlighted as a result not of only the Fish Fight campaign but of the many other campaigns that went before and highlighted precisely the same issues. I hope that the current process of reform, and the debate about the reform, of the common fisheries policy leading to 2013 will be more successful than the last.
	We have inched our way forward, but the EU is like the United Nations when it comes to treaties: trying to reach an agreement across states requires tremendous diplomacy as well as the campaigning skill and zeal of many people in order to ensure that messages are properly understood, and that there are constructive proposals as well as attacks on and criticisms of the existing scheme’s failures.
	In order to make such changes, there are a number of essential elements. First, we need to get right the management framework of the common fisheries policy, and it helps that we have moved the debate on in this Chamber from where it was five or six years ago, when my beloved coalition colleagues used to take the rather different view that we could unilaterally withdraw from the policy. The whole debate became a legal argument, which meant that we never had the right kind of environment—

Andrew George: Having given a warm tribute to my hon. Friend, I hate to find myself in significant disagreement with her. She is right that the Liberal Democrats have argued that we should have a more regionalised basis for the common fisheries policy; we have been consistent in that for the past 20 years. We have been not only consistent, but right and effective, in that the regional advisory councils have now been established.
	The view of the coalition Government—we are in complete agreement between the parties—is that we need to strengthen the regional advisory councils to become regional management committees, in order to give fishermen, along with other stakeholders, significant power. With that power comes responsibility. If the fishermen themselves are making the decisions about the future management of their stocks and the framework within which they operate, they will be the losers if they fail to make any progress. We have succeeded in that fundamental principle. We are making that progress, and the next reform will see us move the agenda forward significantly and positively.

Andrew George: I am sure that there is nothing to be gained from generating a dispute when fishermen share the same objective of achieving a sustainable industry. The amount of fish that Cornish mackerel hand-liners catch is equivalent to what one purse seine can catch in just one week. There may be issues with by-catch or other things, but the hon. Lady will surely understand people’s concerns about the impact of fishing on that scale compared with the low impact of the hand-lining method.

Oliver Colvile: I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on selecting the motion and my hon. Friends the Members for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) on convincing the Committee to discuss it. This has been a useful and helpful debate. I also welcome the decision to hold the debate in the main Chamber. Many of us were concerned that the main fishing debate was not held here last December, and I hope that that can be put right later this year. I also hope that the Government will support the motion, so that we can send a clear, unanimous message on discards back to the European Commission. That would strengthen the hand of the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) when he negotiates with what I perceive to be our European competitors.
	I have campaigned on the issue of bringing our fishing waters back under UK national control, and on the issue of discards, in my constituency for the past 10 years as part of my campaign to sit on these green Benches. During the past decade, I have spoken to the academics at Plymouth university, the local fishing industry and the many experts who work in those agencies that make Plymouth one of the major marine scientific research global players. They say that, by bringing UK waters back under national control, we can conserve fishing stocks and potentially discourage the large Russian and other foreign factory ships and industrial trawlers that come into our waters and do so much damage to our fish stocks and our fishing industry.
	I want at this stage to pay a real tribute to those people who, as the nursery rhyme goes, “put the little fishes on our little dishes”. Fishing is one of the most
	dangerous industries in our country. Our fishermen go to sea each day, in all kinds of weather, day and night, in winter and summer, to put Britain’s No. 1 traditional signature dish on our plates. It is ironic that, only recently, the House has been served a very real reminder of just how dangerous fishing is. I want to express my own personal tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, whose husband died in such tragic circumstances a few weeks ago. I also want to thank my hon. Friend the Minister for coming to a packed funeral, where the local fishing communities on both sides of the Tamar river came together to pay tribute to one of our top fishermen. The Minister’s attendance made a real impact, and may I take this opportunity to thank him for buying me a drink afterwards as well?
	However, I do not need to be reminded that sacrifices such as Neil Murray’s are a regular occurrence among the peninsula’s fishing communities. Anyone who walks down the Barbican in my constituency will see a large wall covered in memorials to Plymouth fishermen who were killed trying to feed us on a regular basis. The last time I went out on a boat, it was shortly after a force 7 gale and I have to admit that I was a little bit ill on several occasions. I learned that anyone who is able to get their boots off in time once they have fallen overboard will probably survive for about three minutes before almost certainly dying either by drowning or of the cold. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will speak to our hon. Friends in the Department for Transport to ensure that no more lives will be lost because of policy changes relating to our coastguards.
	I am not going to pretend that I am as well informed on this issue as others, including my very good and hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, who has demonstrated her excellent understanding of the issues that face the industry. I am aware, however, that fishing is a totemic issue in the south-west, and that it focuses attitudes towards our membership of the EU. One of the biggest mistakes that Britain made in joining the European common market in the first place was to sign up to the common fisheries policy. It was designed to make European fishing grounds a common resource by giving access to all member states.

Jim Shannon: It is a pleasure to speak in the House on this issue, and I commend and thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) for securing the debate. Fishing is a very important factor to my constituency and although I extended this invitation to the Minister last year, I again invite him to visit the fishermen in Portavogie to get a better idea of what that means. I am sure that he will be anxious to take up that invitation and I look forward to his visit.
	As we know, the fishing industry might not be a big contributor to the gross national product, but it has a big effect on some villages. Back in 1985, 260,000 fishermen in the European Union caught some 8 million tonnes of fish, and at that time, more fish were imported than exported. Things had changed by 2007, in that the catch was down and the number of people involved in the fishing industry had reduced—that was a concern. The EU fleet has 97,000 vessels of varying sizes. Fish farming produced a further 1 million tonnes of fish and shellfish and it employed another 85,000 people. So fishing is clearly an important sector in parts of the United Kingdom—it certainly is in the area that I represent.
	I commend the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who is no longer in her place, on making a valuable contribution to the debate. She has many friends in Northern Ireland and she is oft in our thoughts and oft in our prayers. Fishing represents no
	more than 10% of local employment in any region of the EU, but in some areas, including the one I represent, it is a very important factor. Fishing features highly in the employment available in my area and in the village of Portavogie, so it is important that Community funds have been made available to fishing as a means of encouraging regional development.
	I also commend the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) on the amendments she tabled and I am glad that they have been selected, because they would add to the motion and they make a valuable contribution.
	Fresh fish sales have fallen, while demand for processed fish and prepared meals is growing. There has also been a shift towards more supermarket sales rather than restaurant sales. Employment has fallen over this period, mainly due, in my opinion, to European policy. That is why I am particularly pleased to speak in the debate. Rather than there being a fall in availability or demand, it is quite clear that the demand remains.
	The EU is the world’s second largest fishing power after China. I put a question about China to a DEFRA Minister this morning. China seems to be batting up fish all over the world, putting pressure on our own industry. More than 2 million tonnes of fish products were exported in 2006, but more than 6 million tonnes have to be imported to meet EU needs. The competitiveness of the EU fish industry has also been affected by our own bureaucracy and the fact that our fishermen are simply not allowed to fish, so cannot provide the fish needed for the supermarkets.
	With fuel costs so high, the end price is higher than for countries not within the EU, which also compounds the problem. We are constrained by red tape yet we have to compete with those who are able to fish as much as they want. It is hard to be competitive with people who have freedom to expand their business as they desire and as the need dictates, as opposed to being so restricted.
	I recall that a Member spoke earlier about the Spanish armada. Well, the Spanish come regularly to plunder the Irish seas and other coasts around Great Britain. It sticks in the craw of many of us when we see that happening.
	It is clear that something must change—and that something is the common fisheries policy. However, Europe does not see that the regulations need to be relaxed—indeed, it sees quite the opposite. It is so concerned with the so-called “scientific” reports that say there are no fish reserves that they will curb fishing completely, which will undoubtedly kill off any chance of fishermen in Northern Ireland or elsewhere in the United Kingdom being able to make a living. The EU wants to cut the size of fleets and the time fishermen spend at sea. It is important to try to get a balance.
	The Commission says there are still too many vessels chasing too few fish, and that ecological sustainability must take precedence over economic or social factors. In other words, just because a community has traditionally depended on fishing, it does not mean that it can continue to do so. That is key issue for me as the elected representative for Strangford. It is particularly hard to take when I am consistently assured by fishermen that they can see schools upon schools of fish in the sea, yet they are not allowed to touch them.
	I have spoken on this policy before, wearing other hats. I am a member of Ards borough council and a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, so this issue
	is close to my heart. It is a pleasure to be here today to speak and co-operate with my English, Scots and Welsh counterparts to ensure that this unfair practice, which does not allow our fishermen to catch our fish in our sea, is brought to a close. This is a United Kingdom notice of motion, representing all the regions of the UK. In my opinion, the Irish sea has fish enough for our boats—an opinion backed up by the Fish Producers Organisation as well by as the Trawlermen’s Association.
	The Minister will, I know, take this matter on board, put the work in and stand up tall to ensure that that the fishing industry within the Province will not be subjected to a process that will mean no fishing industry at all in five years’ time as a result of European regulations. Something bred into people in our fishing villages will no longer be an option due to EU interference. That is what some of the fishermen are telling me.
	We need a sustainable fishing industry. When I contacted one fish producer organisation, its representative reiterated to me that quayside prices, increasing overheads—especially fuel costs, to which a new “green” tax has recently contributed another 2p a litre—as well as the plethora of fishing regulations all challenge fishing vessel operators and are leading fishermen at least to consider throwing in the towel.
	One of the main problems faced in places like Portavogie in my constituency is that most of the men worked on the boats and the women worked in one or two fish factories, but those factories have recently closed. Things are changing on the sea and on the land as well. Jobs are hard to find. Young people who relied on fishing in the past are now going into the civil service—which is also facing cuts. If the fishing industry has to bear any more pressure, there is every chance that more fishermen will leave their boats. There comes a point at which the sustainability of the industry comes into question.
	In 2010, we in Northern Ireland ensured that we were at the forefront of innovation. That has been seen in the delivery of state-of-the-art new pelagic trawlers that represent the pinnacle of Europe’s fishing industry, in the significant investments in the onshore processing sector, and in investment in several more modern prawn trawlers. All that represents a vote of confidence in the future of this home-grown, privately owned industry.
	I am informed by local industry organisations that UK fisheries Ministers tell the industry that fisheries management decisions must be based on the best available science, and so they should. Although we continue to have certain issues with the science, especially with regard to the abundance of cod in the Irish sea, it is not so much the science that presents us with a problem as the European Commission’s interpretation of it. Many of the Commission’s TAC proposals have less to do with negative science than with the delivery of a political aspiration. In the Irish sea, the science states that stock has increased by 8% in the past two years.
	There are many other issues with which time does not permit me to deal, such as cod recovery. What is clear, however, is that the opinions of fishermen and fish producers must be listened to and acted upon. I hope that the motion will bring that about. The actions of the Faroe Islands and Iceland of late have shown that the EU is not in control of fisheries. It must adopt a sensible approach and take account of the views of those who are on the seas every day and whose livelihood depends on stock replenishment. They know the seas better than any flown-in scientist ever could.
	The long-term cod recovery regulation that was agreed in November 2008 contained a commitment to reviewing the plan after three years. I ask the Minister to ensure that that review now begins. The industry was encouraged to hear recently from DEFRA officials that the review should be “fundamental” in nature and should not, as the Commission has previously suggested, examine the implementation of the 2008 regulation. Such a fundamental review should be delivered as a matter of urgency, and I hope that the Minister will respond to that point when he sums up the debate.
	Recent media coverage has highlighted concern about the level of discards among European fishing fleets. Let me stress that that concern is shared by locally based commercial fishermen. As other Members have pointed out, they are not ignoring the problem by any means. They want to sort it out: they want a balance as well. It should be borne in mind that much discarding is a result of EU regulation. I have received numerous e-mails from environmentalists and concerned constituents asking me to ensure that there is an end to the senseless waste of fish and the ignoring of fishermen’s voices. As every Member has said today, it is a scandal, a shame and immoral for fish to be thrown back into the sea when they could be used.
	While fishermen in other areas continue to explore ways of reducing discards of cod and to monitor their positive results through, for instance, the CCTV and catch quota trials in the North Sea, Northern Ireland fishermen working with fisheries scientists have delivered their own results, and, as other Members have mentioned, the results are similar in Scotland. However, the work will not stop there. A project aimed at a further reduction of discards of whiting and haddock is already being planned. Fishermen are clearly leading the charge, but the fear persists that the European Commission will interpret their results—together with the year-on-year reductions in landings of cod that are due to reductions in the amount of cod that fishermen are permitted to land by Europe—as evidence that fewer and fewer cod are left in the Irish sea. Let us ensure that the evidence base is in favour of fishermen and what they do.
	The current policy is not good for fishermen or for the sea. It is long past time that the House and its Members took decisive action to deal with the situation and to secure the right of fishing folk to fish the sea, make their living and raise their families without the unnecessary interference of the EU. I firmly support the motion, and heartily congratulate the Members who have enabled us to debate it. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and to supporting him in Europe when he does his best for the fishing industry and the United Kingdom.

Barry Gardiner: No, I am already pressed enough for time.
	Certain decision-making powers would be devolved to regional management bodies, in consultation with local stakeholders, in order to tailor the application of central policy objectives for EU fisheries to the specifics of each ecosystem. A fully regionalised management system would include the following features: quotas allocated on the basis of ecosystem regions in order to manage fishing pressure according to the necessities of the different ecosystems; regular scientific assessment of all marine species, not just fish stocks, within a given eco-region to establish the impact of fishing on the ecosystem as a whole; quota allocation on the basis of eco-regions with different licences used in different ecosystem regions and no transfers between the regions.
	The discards in the North sea are between 40% and 60% of total catch, while in other European fisheries, such as that for west of Scotland cod, they can total as much as 90%. The vast majority of fish discarded overboard of course die. In an effort to limit fishing to sustainable levels, EU regulations under the common fisheries policy prohibit the landing of commercial species above a given annual quota. However, in practice this often results in the discarding of thousands of tonnes of saleable fish—the over-quota discards—as fishers are forced to cast overboard their excess or non-target catch before landing, so as not to contravene EU law.
	The result is a policy that fails to prevent fish mortality above levels deemed biologically sustainable. That is a particular problem in mixed fisheries—the majority of EU fisheries—where fishers will catch more than their landing quota for one species as they continue fishing for others that swim with it, in order to maintain fishing
	throughout the year. The Government estimate that over-quota species account for about 22% of English and Welsh discards.
	The introduction of catch quotas in place of the current landing quotas would make fishers accountable for their total catch, rather than for what they land, thereby eliminating the legal catch and discard of over-quota fish. The current CFP also prohibits the landing of quota species below a certain minimum landing size—MLS—to ensure that they are not caught before reaching maturity, thus preserving the reproductive capacity of the stock. In practice, however, many under-sized fish are still caught and simply discarded at sea. An estimated 24% of discards are quota species below legal MLS, so too small to land. The introduction of minimum catch sizes in place of minimum landing sizes has been successful in Norway in incentivising the use of selective gear in fisheries and minimising the catch and mortality of under-sized fish.
	An estimated 54% of English and Welsh discards are of non-commercial species caught as by-catch. Stimulating the creation of new or stronger markets for under-utilised sustainable species such as dab and coley in UK fisheries could result in the elimination of unnecessary waste, greater profits for fishers and a reduction in fishing pressure on other more popular and over-exploited species. We need to be careful, however, that that policy does not encourage the creation of markets for species whose population could not support a sudden increase in harvesting.
	There is currently no obligation to conduct regular stock assessments for most non-commercial species in EU waters, as they are not subject to quota restrictions, so there is little understanding of the impact that increased fishing of them would have on their stocks and on the wider ecosystem. The first priority of any policy that aims to eliminate discards and improve demand for under-utilised species, therefore, should be to mandate regular stock assessments for all species, with a view to introducing management plans, including catch quotas, for all species caught in EU fisheries.
	At the Johannesburg world summit on sustainable development in 2002, the EU committed to achieving a maximum sustainable yield for all fish stocks by 2015 at the latest, but in 2010 it estimated that 72% of its fisheries remained overfished, with 20% fished beyond safe biological limits, risking the wholesale collapse of those fisheries.
	The EU marine strategy framework directive requires that all EU fisheries achieve good environmental status by 2020, which includes the attainment of sustainable fishing levels for all stocks. The European Commission requests scientific advice for the establishment of fisheries management plans on the basis of sustainability, but the European Council is under no obligation to adhere to that advice when agreeing total annual quotas for stocks. The result is that the European Council sets total allowable catch limits that are on average 34% higher than the scientifically recommended sustainable limits.
	Ensuring that all fish and shellfish are harvested at sustainable levels is an absolute prerequisite of the future profitability and survival of EU fisheries. By requiring the delivery of that target by 2015, we will ensure that the EU fulfils its international and domestic commitments to achieve sustainable fisheries and end overfishing.
	A legal requirement to end overfishing of all fish and shellfish by 2015 will necessitate the following key measures: first, rendering scientific advice binding, thus preventing quotas from exceeding biologically sustainable limits; and secondly, introducing stock assessments and management plans for all fish and shellfish, including non-commercial species that are currently unmanaged, in order to establish sustainable limits for harvesting.
	Co-management is an approach whereby Government authorities involve local communities and other stakeholders in management decision making, monitoring and surveillance. The approach aims to encourage co-operation and a shared sense of responsibility, and it has been shown to improve compliance with regulations as well as to improve the effectiveness of management measures, because it draws upon community knowledge to address local socio-economic and ecological issues.
	The establishment of regional advisory councils is cited as a key success of the 2002 CFP reform, because they have served as forums for stakeholders to inform policy implementation at the regional level, but they have no decision-making powers.
	Small-scale and artisanal fishing represents a vital link between the industry and historical coastal fishing communities, and often utilises lower-impact methods—more environmentally sustainable methods of fishing that draw on local traditional knowledge. A future common fisheries policy must reverse the balance of incentives by allocating access rights to fisheries on the basis of environmental sustainability, so giving priority to vessels that utilise selective gear and low-impact methods of fishing. By enabling the UK to introduce higher standards of management and conservation for UK and foreign fishing vessels within its inshore fisheries, without recourse to the European Commission, we would regain powers to determine and manage our coastal marine ecosystems and the livelihoods that depend on them.
	The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) spoke of the importance of ITQs—individual transferable quotas—and the problems that will arise from them. Under this proposal, which is probably the most dramatic in impact of any EU proposal, skippers would be guaranteed shares of national quotas for periods of at least 15 years, which they could trade among themselves—even, if the relevant national Government agrees, with fleets from other countries. This is already practised on a smaller scale in several EU member states, including the UK, but it has been taken much further in other countries.
	A global survey published three years ago showed that fisheries managed using ITQs were half as likely to collapse as others, which is one of the reasons why the Commission is so enthusiastic about them. However, the blanket nature of its proposals gives rise to serious concerns, and I echo those that the hon. Gentleman expressed. Ecologically, ITQs diminish overfishing and seek to protect the sustainability of fishing in the area concerned, but experience shows that they can give rise to the privatisation of fisheries. That is a very serious point, which the Minister has to take on board.

Eric Ollerenshaw: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will try to keep to my limit.
	I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on securing this debate, particularly for the way in which it has been conducted and the experience that has been brought to it. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), I do not claim to be an expert in this field, but I do represent the town of Fleetwood. This year marks 175 years since its foundation, and for all those years it has been synonymous with the fishing industry. Indeed, in the 19th century Fleetwood was at the end of the west coast main line, principally to enable fish landed there to get to Billingsgate as fresh as possible. Being new to the fish world, as I call it, I have had to learn at first hand the stories and legends from fishermen. Believe me, some of those are long and involved, but I sat there listening patiently. As other hon. Members have said, the hurt that they feel at the tragedy that they have endured through the devastation of their once-proud industry is very apparent.
	Fleetwood, more than most, has seen its fishing industry destroyed in the 20th century. The port is now down to a few dozen registered boats with perhaps two or three boats landing fish, mainly shellfish. The crazy irony of the history of fishing in this country is illustrated by the fact that Fleetwood’s success still lies in fish processing. Hundreds of tonnes of fish now arrive in Fleetwood by truck from every port in England because of the large scale of Fleetwood’s fish processors, which are still on the docks, but the docks do not land any more fresh fish. That is what we have come to. It is difficult to explain the impact that this decline in fishing has had over the years on the morale of a town where most people claim descent from the original dozen fishing families around whom it developed. These intricacies go back years. Indeed, with the good advice of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), for which I am very grateful, I am still dealing with compensation claims that go back to the Icelandic cod wars.
	Like other Members, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) on the record for her advice. She has been unstinting in her help, and in sharing her knowledge and passion for the subject. She has taught me a great deal.
	This debate is rightly focused on discards, an issue that has united fishermen and the public like no other issue in recent years. It is incredible that from primary school children through to politicians, everybody sees the sense of the argument about the scale of the discarding, the moral condemnation of it, and the economic wrongs it has created. As an ex-history teacher, I compare it to prohibition, because it is a policy that has been so counter-productive in terms of its original aims that it will go down in the history books. I fully support the
	motion, given that discards in the North sea alone equate to some 500,000 to 800,000 tonnes a year. That is waste on an incredible scale.
	Discarding is also wrong because there appear to be solutions, and I am pleased that the Government have supported some of those. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park mentioned the pilots for cod quotas, which have prevented discards. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall mentioned the intricacies of net size, which again have prevented discards. I have looked at the 50% scheme in Brixham, which has received widespread praise. All those solutions have presented incentives to fishermen, as conservation is in their interests.
	I believe that this campaign has demonstrated, once and for all, that fishermen and the public understand the need for managed conservation. I hope that the success of the pilots and the public support will provide the Minister with backing when he goes to Brussels. He might not achieve the scrapping of the common fisheries policy, which many of us want, but he will now go armed with the support of this House and of a country united in a demand for real reform.
	As hon. Members have said, discards are just the tip of the iceberg of things that have wrecked the fishing industry. Fishermen in my constituency are fighting for realistic compensation for the increasing areas of Morecambe bay being filled with wind turbines, with the support of the Department of Energy and Climate Change. It has amazed me that there is no statutory compensation, and that every fisherman has to fight individually for compensation. At the same time, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby reminded us, marine conservation zones are spreading, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is on the fishermen’s backs, fishermen are involved in consultation, and they are fighting for compensation and quotas. One sometimes wonders what time a fisherman has left actually to go fishing, in between all the demands placed on them.
	We are getting to the point where so many Departments have a slice of our seas that perhaps we need a Secretary of State for the seas. Perhaps I would not be as radical as my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal, but something major needs to happen if we are to alter the decline that we have seen, and the casual treatment, by previous Governments of all parties, of the great seas around us. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) talked about farmers. I have always wondered how we can manage to protect the environment in national parks successfully, and to sustain real business in which farmers are a fundamental part of saving that environment, when we cannot manage to do that out at sea.
	The Fish Fight has brought together fishermen, processors, retailers, consumers and—dare I say it?—politicians of all parties, as we have seen today. Its success may well be the signal that we can finally start on the long road back to protecting one of our greatest resources: the seas that make these islands to which we all belong.

Sarah Wollaston: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on his tireless efforts to reduce fish discards.
	All hon. Members understand the importance of fishing to our local economies, but I represent Brixham, which lands the highest-value catch in England. That represents more than £17 million for our local and national economy. That is real jobs, not just at sea but on land, and a very valuable export market.
	I thank the fisheries Minister for his recent visit. He is now aware of Project 50%, which is being carried out in Brixham, to which many hon. Members have paid tribute. I should like to recognise the work of Darren Edwards, the net designer, and scientists at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science. Shaun Gibbs, who presented the results of Project 50% to Maria Damanaki, and other trawlermen, have fitted cameras to their trawlers to monitor catches, so that we can get away from the existing quota system. They are taking part in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea area 7e sole catch quota trial.
	I also recognise the work of south-west fish producers, who are working with the Government through the Fishing for the Markets project to look at how to achieve better sales for unusual fish, such as pout, whiting, gurnard and dragonet. I hesitate to give anyone cooking advice—my family certainly do not miss my cooking back at home—but all one has to do with gurnard is stick it in the oven with a bit of butter and rosemary. Nothing else is required, and it is absolutely delicious. I commend gurnard to the House!
	Fisherman in Brixham and surrounding areas have made extensive efforts to reduce discards—all hon. Members will recognise that—but we can imagine their frustration. They have reduced their fishing effort and taken part in a series of trials to reduce discards, at great personal cost, and improved the sustainability of the mixed fishery in the English channel, only to find that Dutch fly-draggers that have fished more than their quotas and destroyed their fishing grounds in the North sea are coming over and having the same impact in our waters. That is extremely demoralising for our fishermen.
	The CFP is undoubtedly outdated and unsustainable, but we must be careful in how we implement measures on discards. I was reassured that the wording of the motion was altered so that we recognise that not all species that are thrown back into the sea die. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who is very experienced, drew attention to the fact that if we landed all the crab that we catch, crab would become extinct, which is an important point. We must also recognise the efforts made in the lobster fisheries, which now notch rather than land buried, egg-bearing lobsters, which has greatly increased fish stocks locally. Therefore, we need to be careful in how we talk about discarding, and look at all the alternative measures that have been outlined, which I hope the Minister will consider.
	I know that the Minister works tirelessly on behalf of our fishing industry, but we would also like to see some fairness. I am in the difficult position of representing both the under-10 and the over-10 metre fleets, which clearly have different needs, as we all recognise. However, if we are to have fairness, their efforts must not be undermined by foreign vessels. I am sure that all Members would ask the Minister to press home the point in Europe that this is the only way forward. However, I know that many other Members wish to speak, so with that I will take my seat.

Sarah Newton: I, too, congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) on securing this debate. May I also associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) about our hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall?
	In the limited time available I would like to support the part of the motion that talks about necessary reforms to the policy affecting small-scale fishermen. I would like to share with the House the example of a group of fishermen in my constituency which I hope will underline all the valuable contributions that we have heard from across the House—something that, in itself, underlines the fact that we need to make more decisions here in the UK about our fishing fleet.
	I represent a maritime constituency. Ensuring that we manage our marine environment and support sustainable fishing is vital to me and my constituents. We have perhaps the most sustainable fishery in Cornwall, at the Fal river oyster fishery, which is officially known as the Port of Truro oyster fishery. It is the last oyster fishery in Europe harvested under sail, by Europe’s last commercial sailing fleet. We have native oysters in the River Fal, which have been harvested in more or less the same, highly sustainable fashion, without the use of mechanical power, for more than 500 years.
	Bylaws introduced by the Truro Corporation back in the 19th century protect the Fal’s beds from over-exploitation by limiting harvesting to non-mechanical means. That means relying on wind and tide, with sail-powered working boats towing the dredges across the beds in a fashion known as “drift”. Many of the historic vessels used have been on and off the water for more than 150 years, and are used for fishing in the winter and racing in the summer. Further up the river, hand-rowed punts are used with the same dredges. Any oyster that is smaller than the statutory two and five-eighths of an inch in diameter is discarded and returned to the river bed to grow on. After the oysters have been harvested, they are purified and sold all over the world. They are very popular in France, although more than 10,000 oysters are consumed during the immensely popular annual Falmouth oyster festival, which is held each autumn.
	The number of licences issued by the Port of Truro harbour authority fluctuates each year, but in the 2010-11 season, 45 licences were applied for by 32 separate people. There were 12 sailing boats and six punts fishing over the past winter. A licence is needed for each dredge. The season runs from October to March, with fishing strictly limited to between 9 am and 3 pm each weekday, and 9 am and 1 pm on Saturdays. The most recent statistics show that during the 2009-10 season, some 750,000 million oysters were caught.
	Typically, oysters are sold by fishermen to buyers at 25p an oyster. Buyers sell them on to shops, which sell them for about £1 an oyster. Despite the cost to hon. Members who enjoy eating oysters, the fishermen make a modest income. I hope that hon. Members can see that, through the measures taken in Cornwall, we have managed to keep this sustainable fishery. There is a proactive relationship between the harbour authority and the oyster fishery to manage and improve the nursery beds for future years.
	Members with a lot of experience will recall that marine fisheries licences are required by all UK vessels fishing for profit. They were introduced in 1992 as a method of enforcing EU regulations for sustainable fisheries management. Captain Brigden and Carrick council made representations to the Government of the day in 1993, and secured an exemption for boats under 10 metres fishing under sail or oar. This meant that such boats would not require a marine fishing licence to fish, and the exemption covered the boats of the Truro oyster fishery. Now, the EU is reviewing the exemptions that have been granted to the fishery, and possibly others.
	What would be the impact of ending the licence exemption for the Truro oyster fishery? Fishermen would have to meet the substantial one-off costs of applying for a marine fisheries licence. The cost depends on the size of the vessel, and for the average 28-foot oyster fishing boat, it would be about £4,500. This would be in addition to annual fees and local fees. This overhead would put many oyster fishermen out of business, so this EU measure would have the perverse outcome of putting out of business some of the most highly skilled and sustainable fishermen in Europe.
	Learning to fish for oysters by hand and under sail takes many years to master. The fishermen work very hard in the winter and most have other seasonal work during the rest of the year. In a good year, the fishery can provide a reasonable living for the experienced men who are prepared to put in the time and effort in all weathers in order to make a sustainable living. The extra licence fees will put an end to centuries of oyster fishing on the Fal.
	The renaissance of locally produced and traditional foods has been a great source of satisfaction for many people around the country. Locally grown food is also healthier food. In October, Falmouth hosts the oyster festival, which helps the whole community to celebrate our heritage and sense of place, as well as attracting tourists from all over the world. Just last year, Rick Stein opened an oyster bar in Falmouth. So the oyster fishery makes a wider, significant contribution to the local economy of Falmouth and Cornwall, and contributes to the reputation of Cornwall as a producer of high-quality food. I urge the Government to ensure that decisions about the licensing of our small vessels are taken in this country, to ensure the highest levels of environmental protection and sustainable food production for our country.

Eric Ollerenshaw: I raised the issue of a direct rail link in a Westminster Hall debate a couple of weeks ago, and the only other transport link is a single-lane road, the A585, from the motorway. The overriding story, as everyone in Fleetwood will say, is that the town has suffered significantly in recent years, largely as the use of the port has declined.
	Lancaster, at the other extreme of the constituency, is also an old port city, and it has a great heritage. Its medieval castle includes the only example left in England of anything that was built by John of Gaunt, and its tourist potential is strong. Lancaster university is ranked in the top 10 by The Times, it has a large campus and its research is driving many business developments in the area. What Lancaster lacks is a large modern department store, meaning that its retail business pales in comparison with places such as Preston, which is increasingly taking business away. I hope that a proposed development, known as Centros, will resolve that in the next few years, so long as English Heritage can overcome some points of detail which have held up the project.
	We also have a large rural area, with small hill farms and various other businesses established around the city boundaries, but again there is a problem with a lack of rural broadband, particularly in the hills surrounding Lancaster, so the question is: how do we help business and the private sector in Lancaster and Fleetwood to grow?
	Much of what is needed is the same as what businesses need all over the country, and I will start with the generic, throw in some local examples and then move on to some more constituency concerns. The outcome of Project Merlin, to get the banks to lend more—an extra £11 billion this year compared with 2010—is obviously welcome, but perhaps one of the biggest complaints that I still receive, from small businesses especially, is that they continue to struggle to secure finance from the banks, whether new capital or just an overdraft extension. In many cases there is simply a lack of good customer service, with bank managers and decision makers not being available.
	For example, Mr lain Bailey, a small businessman based in Lancaster, says that he still struggles to engage productively with his bank when he needs to; that
	“many businesses feel banks have left us all adrift”;
	and that it is simply
	“up to the businesses themselves to sort things out!”
	My local chamber of commerce, Lancaster chamber of commerce, in its most recent members survey on finance and banking, received a number of disconcerting comments. Here are just a few examples from individual businesses in Lancaster. One said:
	“Our bank is very unhelpful at the moment and have no leeway and appear to be too inflexible.”
	Another business person said:
	“I was refused a formal overdraft increase but allowed excess at punitive cost.”
	A further business noted:
	“Even though we had a business account with our bank for over 25 years they refused to even give us an answer when we applied for a loan.”
	And finally, one more business explained:
	“I asked to increase my overdraft to help ease cash flow but our bank forced us to reduce it by £10,000 instead!"
	It is clear that in some cases the banks are still not living up to their end of the bargain, so perhaps the Minister will let me know where we are on bank lending, and whether there is any mechanism that will allow businesses, or perhaps MPs acting on their behalf, to report ongoing problems for his Department to follow up.
	I welcome the end of the Northwest Regional Development Agency, and the new local enterprise partnership structure should lead to more targeted, specific and relevant assistance for places such as Lancaster and Fleetwood. One problem with the Northwest Regional Development Agency involved the fact that, for many of us in the region, the view rapidly developed that the north-west began and ended in Manchester and on Merseyside. Sadly, I will have to return to that theme later, but if I do nothing else today I hope to make it clear to the Minister that that is definitely not the case.
	I also think that the new local enterprise partnership—LEP—structures can lead to more direct input from local businesses, and that can only be good for ensuring that schemes are of real practical value. In Lancashire we have taken slightly longer than some other places to get our LEP agreed, but I thank the Minister’s Department for its help in finally enabling us to bring the various parts of Lancashire together. I put on record my personal thanks to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) for his efforts in trying to ensure that Lancashire finally got a Lancashire-wide LEP.
	However, in the interim period local businesses are very uncertain about how the new regime will work. The Lancaster chamber of commerce—and it is not alone—says that it needs more clarification on what support there will be, who will deliver it, and how to access it. Once Business Link regional services close, people wonder what vehicle will be used to keep businesses informed of what support is available. They need to know more about the mechanisms that will be available to support and encourage new businesses, to assist potential high-growth businesses and to encourage business development in areas of deprivation, and about how the interrelations between the various councils, regenerations and Government bodies is to develop. There is still work to be done, especially as our LEP has only just started to be set up. I urge the Minister to ensure that there is as much communication as possible with local businesses, and particularly local chambers of commerce, over the next few months so that the various communities can begin to plan properly for the future.
	According to the Library, 42.2% of the population of Lancaster and Fleetwood is employed in the public sector—the 37th highest proportion in the UK. As cuts are made to public spending, the Government’s agenda for growth in the private sector will be disproportionately important in constituencies such as mine, and I want to ensure that we get our fair share of resources and that all that can be done to encourage private sector growth in my area is done.
	The regional growth fund is a big opportunity for businesses, an opportunity for individual companies, and a help in regenerating whole area. In the north-west we have welcomed the Government’s recognition of the distinction between the south-east and the east and the rest of the country, and the fact that the regional growth fund’s priority is our kind of area. The first round of successful regional growth fund bids lists an impressive number of jobs that the supported first round schemes will help to create or maintain in the wider north-west.
	However, my concern about the first round process is that a lot of the criteria are determined by European subsidy rules, which in effect means that support for large companies can be offered only to particularly low-employment or deprived parts of the country. Assisted areas in the north-west include Liverpool, St Helens and parts of Manchester. The other parts of the north-west are missing. For example, a major manufacturer based in Lancaster that employs 150 people wanted to expand, and was looking into the possibility of bidding for regional growth fund money to do so. It was determined that it could provide 50% more jobs through its expansion. However, its turnover was above the threshold for assistance outside the special assisted areas, and it was effectively hamstrung in terms of accessing regional growth fund money. I remind the Minister that this is about the possibility of new jobs.
	Those rules have thus resulted in most of the resources of the first round regional growth fund bids going to big city areas such as Manchester and Liverpool—precisely the situation that I had hoped the break up of the RDAs was going to help to avoid. We accept that this will help my constituents, many of whom either already commute to Manchester each day or would be prepared to do so. However, I hope that phase 2 of the bidding process will include more support for north-west companies
	outside Manchester and Liverpool—companies that can show that they can provide the extra jobs and growth that I understood were this Government’s priority.
	Perhaps that would be more likely to happen if more bids were accepted from small and medium-sized enterprises, but the return on investment required for a successful regional growth fund bid has in some ways limited applications from that sector. SMEs often do not have the resources to compile the data required for entering into the bidding process—at least not on their own—and so we come back to support for businesses in terms of information and guidance to help them through the bidding process.
	That brings me on to the related subject of enterprise zones. I broadly welcome the Government’s creation of enterprise zones. They have the potential to bring much-needed investment into areas that need jobs and regeneration. They also have a key role to play in closing the north-south divide and rebalancing the economy, which is a major aim of the Government. Of the 11 zones that have been announced, the two in the north-west are in—you’ve guessed it—Manchester and Liverpool. Although I welcome those zones because they will drag business northwards and create hubs of industry that neighbouring areas can feed off, I am concerned that, yet again, it is the big cities of the north-west that will get the immediate benefit. I hope that more original locations will emerge when the remaining 10 enterprise zones are allocated, possibly helping areas further north than Manchester. An enterprise zone on the Fylde coast, for example, would be welcome, because it would help to provide jobs not only for my constituents in Fleetwood, but in the wider areas of Blackpool and Fylde, as well as providing new business orders for local businesses.
	Transport infrastructure is also necessary for businesses to thrive. The coalition has done well in that area so far. After years of underinvestment in our transport network under Labour, in just one year there has been a lot of good news for the north-west, and for my constituents in particular. The renewal of the west coast franchise offers extra capacity for the overcrowded rail services on that route. In the longer term, High Speed 2 offers more capacity, speed and choice for journeys to London and, ultimately, Scotland. It might also open a direct link to Heathrow and the channel tunnel.

Eric Ollerenshaw: Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for his support in working with the chamber of commerce, the county council and Ministers to help them see the importance of that scheme, which promises much for business.
	The transport links to Fleetwood remain poor. I have raised with Ministers that although there is about four and a half or five miles of railway line in Fleetwood, unfortunately, there are no trains on it. There is a plan, with the support of the council, to get that development, which needs capital of about £6 million. I will come back to those figures in a minute.
	My last general point is that I fully support the plans to reduce the amount of red tape that businesses have to fight through. We need economic growth, and it is only right that we should make it as easy as possible for businesses and entrepreneurs to start up companies and create the jobs that are so badly needed. That is the greatest area in which businesses have asked me for support and talked about their hopes from the coalition.
	The Government’s war on red tape—the red tape challenge, I think it has been branded—is welcomed by all businesses. I know that many previous Governments have talked the talk, but I hope this Administration will finally walk the walk. I am particularly hopeful of that because I know that the Minister has that type of background and has personal experience. I am sure that he will put his full weight behind the deregulation drive.
	Those are the general issues, but I also wish to mention one or two specific local examples to demonstrate the problems. The first is that of a company called Nitratec, which is based in Fleetwood and supplies trucks and trailers both new and used for the UK and export markets. It asked me to visit last year. It was having a particular problem in getting help to access export markets, particularly in some less usual export destinations. For instance, it was keen to grow into Africa and Kurdistan. As it happened, I was able to put it on to the British embassy in Iraq via a couple of contacts, and I understand that that side of things is
	now going well. The lesson is that perhaps we could still be doing more to help companies understand where they can go to get assistance if they want to export goods or services. In that instance, it was just a fluke that I had contacts in the particular area where the company wanted to develop, but why should a business that has such potential have to rely on the chance nature of its MP’s contacts?
	Increasing exports is, of course, a major policy plank for the UK. I note that only yesterday, the Foreign Secretary told the House that if we could increase the number of small and medium-sized enterprise exporters in this country from one in five to the EU average of one in four, the extra exports from Britain would more than cancel out the trade deficits that we have experienced in recent years. I hope that more can be done to help companies get on the right track.
	I shall give another example. Paul Banks is a constituent of mine who has a start-up business in Lancaster called Image Alchemy. It is highly innovative, as I saw when I visited him a couple of months ago. His potential for further growth is extremely high, and Lancaster university’s environment centre has recently “adopted” him, marking his business out as worthy of support. His new prototype system was an immediate hit at a recent German trade fair and a fair at the national exhibition centre in Birmingham, and order inquiries came pouring in. To get the system to production he needs to get finance, which could mean the immediate creation of five new jobs in the community.
	Mr Banks has funded the new product with his own money, but he has struggled to access local and EU funding designed to help expand small start-ups such as his. The bureaucracy that he has encountered in seeking a small five-figure sum has bogged him down with repetitive form-filling, but the rewards if his expansion can be aided are potentially huge. The key point that I wish to underline is the small sum needed to get the company launched. We need to make it easier for such businesses to find funding, especially when the sums needed are so small.
	Another example is a scheme called the fish park in Fleetwood. One of the plans for the regeneration of Fleetwood was to develop a sea and shellfish processing park, providing a new unit for the already resident company AM Seafoods and various other units for some 20 SMEs. The industry is already worth some £135 million and 660 jobs to the local economy, but the enhancement and modern premises could mean the addition of 150 new jobs in a town that needs private sector growth.
	A partnership between Wyre borough council, Lancashire county council and AM Seafoods is in place, and the plan is to split the costs 50:50 between the private and public sector. The public sector amount required is £6 million. The point that I am trying to make is that the sums needed in areas outside the major areas of deprivation are quite small, but the resulting employment would be quite large. In my postbag and my surgeries, virtually every fortnight I hear of a new business, whether small or large—although the businesses in my area are not huge—that has the same problem. Through innovation or expanding on existing orders, they could provide the extra jobs that the economy needs, but at the moment there seems no way for them to get assistance with that growth, and certainly not from the banks.
	I need to give the Minister time to reply. I should like him to reconsider regional stock exchanges, and I should like him to consider enterprise zones being part and parcel of every university campus, to enable universities to develop innovation. Most of all, I look for some assistance from the Government, or for them to put pressure on banks to provide that much-needed assistance, so that we get the growth we need.

John Hayes: I am extremely grateful for the chance to respond to this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) on securing it. My last dealings with Fleetwood directly were around a decade ago, when, as shadow fisheries Minister, I visited that splendid town and stayed at the North Euston hotel, which is, of course, part of the Mount, which is perhaps the jewel in the crown—if I might put it that way—of Fleetwood.
	How appropriate that we should today have this Adjournment debate following a debate on fishing, which forms such an important part of Fleetwood’s history. As I recall from my time as shadow fisheries Minister and from information I have gained somewhat later, 1,000 people are still employed in that industry, mostly in fish processing. As my hon. Friend said in his excellent speech, many more people are, I suspect, employed producing Fishermen’s Friends, which I understand are particularly popular in Japan.
	John Ruskin said that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not aspire to be a truly great man, but I do aspire to humility, and I should say at the outset that I could never know as much as my hon. Friend about his constituency, nor speak with the passion about it that he has demonstrated today. He comes to the House with a long and proud history in local government, and already, he has brought an energy, enthusiasm, commitment and, if I may say, an expertise to his dealings in this place as the representative of his splendid constituency.
	I shall try to respond to as many of the points that my hon. Friend raised as I can, although he will appreciate that time is short. He knows how deeply the Government are committed to encouraging renewed economic growth and the new jobs and businesses that will spring from that, and I draw his attention to the work done leading up to today and the announcement on youth employment made this afternoon by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, with which I was pleased to be involved. They announced new policies for encouraging more apprenticeships, which is a subject dear to my heart, and for work placements and experience as a means of moving people from economic disengagement to engagement.
	That will resonate in Fleetwood, as my hon. Friend suggests, but ensuring that we take advantage of the capital that lies, sometimes unused, among those who are currently disengaged, is a challenge for the whole country. The investment infrastructure to which he drew attention also means investing in human infrastructure. That is a central pillar of the Government’s macroeconomic plans. It would be impossible to recalibrate the economy to make it more sustainable if we did not make that kind of investment, as he properly said.
	Just as the Government have been honest with the British people about the scale of the deficit and its implications, we must now accept that the struggle for growth will not be without its setbacks. For example, I was particularly saddened to hear from my hon. Friend of Stena Line’s recent decision to close its service between Fleetwood and Larne, although I understand that the service operated at a loss for some time.
	Having said that, just as we accept bad news, we should celebrate good news—better tidings, if I can put it that way. Only the other day, I was heartened to read in the Blackpool Gazette, which is always on my bedside table, as one might imagine, that my hon. Friend had formally opened the delightfully named Strawberry Gardens pub in Fleetwood. I gather that that is the first pub to be opened by the new and even more inventively titled Fuzzy Duck brewery, which has been set up in his constituency. I can assure him of my best wishes for their success.
	The creation of a small business such as that one illustrates a fundamentally important point, as my hon. Friend said, for small businesses are the bedrock of our economy. Businesses in Lancaster and Fleetwood are primarily small and medium-sized enterprises, and the issues they face are typical of those experienced by companies across the country over the past few years. SMEs account for more than 99% of private businesses, and about half of all jobs. I do not need to tell you that, Mr Deputy Speaker, given your background and your commitment to that sector based on personal and family experience.
	As my hon. Friend suggested, I, too, have a background in business, having been a businessman in the IT industry before coming to this place. I fully appreciate his points about regulation and tax, and in particular about the need to invest in small businesses—and, for that reason, the importance of banks getting behind those businesses, to allow them to form and to grow.
	What, he might ask, are we doing to help with all that? Well, we will enable better access to both debt and equity finance. We will ensure that we have a predictable tax system that rewards endeavour. We will also reduce red tape and ensure that the support that we provide SMEs is delivered in the most effective and efficient way possible. I hope to return to one or two of those points in more detail, but I want to emphasise access to finance in particular, as that was a central part of my hon. Friend’s speech. As he said, the flow of credit to viable SMEs is essential for supporting growth; and indeed, that is the core priority for this Government. We recognise the problems faced by small firms that do not have adequate security to obtain finance. That is why we have decided to continue the enterprise finance guarantee until 2015, to unlock up to £2 billion of additional lending to SMEs. The latest figures show that 18 businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency have so far been offered and have drawn down EFG-backed loans worth over £2 million.
	The EFG scheme is of course intended to complement rather than replace mainstream bank lending. This
	Government have made considerable efforts to get the banks to meet the demand for credit from viable SMEs. Under the Project Merlin agreement, the banks have committed to make available £190 billion of new credit in 2011, of which £76 billion will be for SMEs—a 15% increase on the £66 billion lent in 2010. Clearly Banks still need to make commercial decisions, and it is not for the Government to intervene in these. In view of that, I would encourage any businesses having difficulties with their bank to continue to engage with the bank to try to resolve the issue.
	My hon. Friend also made the important point that we need an independent review of such matters when things do not go right; and indeed, an independent reviewer has been appointed to monitor the banks’ appeal processes. He will publish an annual report on the effectiveness of those processes. The appeal process that we have set up is sensitive to the very sound points that my hon. Friend made. He can feel absolutely assured that this Minister, in this Department, along with my hon. Friends, will ensure that small businesses get the backing that they need and deserve.
	My hon. Friend also talked about business mentors and advice. It is critical that we establish a network of experienced business mentors offering practical advice to existing businesses and people who want to start a business. We are setting up a new business coaching for growth programme to enable new small businesses with high growth potential to realise that potential. We are also refocusing the Solutions for Business range of products, so that they are better focused on helping firms grow.
	We are also establishing local enterprise partnerships. We expect the new LEPs to be able to provide help to small firms, both with advice and by bringing together useful partnerships that will allow the sharing of good practice across the private and public sectors. That increased coherence will help my hon. Friend’s constituency, as it will others, in the ways that he requested. As set out in the White Paper, local enterprise partnerships will play diverse roles, reflecting the differing local priorities in different areas. These will include ensuring that both planning and infrastructure investment support business needs, and working with Government to support enterprise, innovation, global trade and inward investment. He will also know that we announced 11 enterprise zones in the Budget. They will be hosted by LEPs and will bring together a wide range of tools and incentives in an unashamedly pro-growth way, giving power back to local communities and businesses.
	My hon. Friend has done a service to this House in highlighting the important issues facing his constituency. They reflect those facing constituencies up and down this country. He can be assured that this is a Government who are pro-business, pro-enterprise, pro-growth, pro his constituency and pro-him.
	Question put and agreed to.
	House adjourned.